Words Their Way Inventory Assessment

For teachers to be effective in providing equitable learning opportunities, they must be informed about the dynamics of diversity in the student population. This awareness should be aimed at providing meaningful and engaging learning activities that are sensitive to the linguistic, gender-based racial, ethnic, cultural, and exceptional needs of the students (Indiana University Teaching Handbook, 2012). However, before teachers can create meaningful opportunities for learning, they must be aware of their students’ strength and weaknesses. Diagnostic assessments provide detailed information that can help the teacher identify areas of weaknesses in order to help students evolve through the reading stages. After identifying students’ deficiencies

Assessments should guide instruction and material selection. Any likely manner, assessments should measure student progress, as well as help, identify deficiencies in reading (Afflerback, 2012). One important indicator of reading deficiencies is spelling. Morris (2014), advocated the importance of administering a spelling assessment in order to have a better understanding of a student’s reading abilities. My school uses the Words Their Way spelling inventory to assess students’ reading abilities at the beginning of the year and throughout the reading year. The Words Their Way inventory assessment provides a series of spelling lists at different levels. It begins with a primary spelling inventory assessment followed by an elementary spelling list and ends with an upper-level spelling inventory. I commenced the test with the primary spelling list since the list is designed to recognize the difficulties with letter naming and word patterns. After correcting this part of the assessment, I noticed that sixty percent of my students obtained a score of 84% or more and the the rest scored at various levels of the primary list. The students that scored less than proficient on the primary list are struggling with word patterns and primary inflectional endings. Both groups placed in the early stage level of the groups. These students demonstrated difficulty with long vowel patters and ed ending words. I decided to administer the elementary

In this case, teachers must employ other resources and feet collaboration from colleagues. This is where the RTI process comes into place. Messmer and Messmer, (2008) explained that the response to intervention serves as a vehicle to identify and serve students with learning difficulties. On the other hand, several steps should be followed to implement correctly RTI. In my opinion, my school possesses a fair understanding of the RTI process and manages the implementation of a consistent approach that positively affects the student. To begin, the RTI process my school begins with the teacher. At the beginning of the year, a battery of assessments is conducted to help identify students’ levels in reading. Students take the first Dibbles benchmark to determine their fluency rate as well as the Star test to diagnose phonemic awareness, vocabulary, and comprehension. Also, students are administered the Words Their Way spelling inventory to identify and create word study interventions. Once teachers have gathered all the data, they create a reading learning plan for students who scored significantly below the benchmark for the beginning of the year. The reading plan includes at least two interventions with a proven intervention program like Star Reading, Success Maker, Words Their Way, or other